Facebook is the place where I’ve learned about pregnancies, births, engagements, and new jobs. However, it has also become the place where I learn about the deaths of children, the loss of jobs, and natural disasters.

Somewhere in the middle lies all of the information that we don’t need to know:

TMI (Too Much Information) on People I Hardly Know

Over six months ago, I found out from Facebook that Bill’s girlfriend told him she had been dating him until she found someone better. I know him socially but through professional organizations so I wasn’t quite sure how to handle that wall post. Flash forward to today and I met Bill’s girlfriend (same girl) at a recent event and they live together now. I still have it in my mind that she dumped him in the hopes of finding someone better. Next thing I know, they’ll be engaged.

Virtual Relationship

Dixie shared with me how she watched her potential life unfold as someone she had a crush on began posting all of the firsts of his new relationship:

their first trip, their first visit to the beach, their first everything.

And, there she was, powerless, voyeuristicly watching as someone else began living the life she wanted to be hers. Without Facebook, her feelings would have been spared.

Cyber Stalking

We are so quick to let people know where we are. Facebook places allowed us to share with the masses of our friends where we were at any given time (FB shut it down so it doesn’t exist anymore). I was friends with a recent ex on Facebook but began discovering that I didn’t want to know if he was at the W Hotel at midnight or continuing to take the class we were in together. But, the day that led to my unfriending him on Facebook was when I discovered that he checked in to an obscure restaurant that I had checked into the week before. I have a hard time believing it was a coincidence given where he lives. It creeped me out. I started reducing my check-ins and unfriended him right away.

Romantic Pains

I recently happened upon the Facebook profile pic of my first love. Last I knew, he hadn’t posted a single picture on Facebook. Suddenly, there he was… in a picture. Not alone. He was standing next to a thin blonde woman in a red bikini.

Slowly, I began to feel the twinge of pain in my heart signaling that, no matter how much I logically know that he and I won’t be together, he has moved on. And I haven’t. Maybe I know he isn’t my Mr. Right so I’ve moved on in general. But, given that he was my first love and their hasn’t been a second… well, it feels like I’m stuck. Stuck in the cycle of bad dates that are the reason for this blog. Stuck looking in from the outside at happy couples. Stuck babysitting babies but not having any of my own.

Without Facebook, I wouldn’t know that he has a girlfriend. I wouldn’t know what she looks like or where she’s from (they grew up in the same small hometown in East Texas) and I wouldn’t be wondering if the man who said he would never get married is now going to be married before me, the one who has always wanted to settle down.

Facebook Sucks

I have now decided that Facebook sucks. I don’t need to know this much information. It is overwhelming and awkward. It makes me feel like a voyeur and also like I know things about people who, if I ran into them at the grocery store, would be unlikely to share so very much information with me. And, if they wouldn’t tell me directly, why is it ok for me to glean the information online?